Frédéric Chopin Quotes

1. “Simplicity is the final achievement.”

— Frédéric Chopin

2. “I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.”

— Frédéric Chopin

3. “Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!”

— Frédéric Chopin

4. “Bach is an astronomer, discovering the most marvellous stars. Beethoven challenges the universe. I only try to express the soul and the heart of man.”

— Frédéric Chopin

5. “It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.”

— Frédéric Chopin

6. “Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties.”

— Frédéric Chopin

7. “Even in winter it shall be green in my heart.”

— Frédéric Chopin

8. “I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, and yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.”

— Frédéric Chopin

9. “Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

— Frédéric Chopin

10. “Time is the best of critics; and patience the best of teachers.”

— Frédéric Chopin

11. “Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.”

— Frédéric Chopin

12. “Nothing is more odious than music without hidden meaning.”

— Frédéric Chopin

13. “Oh, how miserable it is to have no one to share your sorrows and joys, and, when your heart is heavy, to have no soul to whom you can pour out your woes.”

— Frédéric Chopin

14. “As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days.”

— Frédéric Chopin

15. “A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man.”

— Frédéric Chopin

16. “Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except, possibly two.”

— Frédéric Chopin

17. “Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?”

— Frédéric Chopin

18. “Play Mozart in memory of me.”

— Frédéric Chopin

19. “The last thing is simplicity. After having gone through all the difficulties, having played an endless number of notes, it is simplicity that matters, with all its charm. It is the final seal on Art. Anyone who strives for this to begin with will be disappointed. You cannot begin at the end.”

— Frédéric Chopin

20. “I could express my feelings more easily if they could be put into the notes of music, but as the very best concert would not cover my affection for you, dear daddy, I must use the simple words of my heart, to lay before you my utmost gratitude and filial affection.”

— Frédéric Chopin

21. “Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano.”

— Frédéric Chopin

22. “I’m a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.”

— Frédéric Chopin

23. “The three most celebrated doctors on the island have been to see me. One sniffed at what I spat, the second tapped where I spat from, and the third sounded me and listened as I spat. The first said I was dead, the second that I was dying and the third that I’m going to die.”

— Frédéric Chopin

24. “I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself.”

— Frédéric Chopin

25. “I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience intimidates me, I feel choked by its breath, paralyzed by its curious glances, struck dumb by all those strange faces.”

— Frédéric Chopin

26. “They want me to give another concert but I have no desire to do so. You cannot imagine what a torture the three days before a public appearance are to me.”

— Frédéric Chopin

27. “Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art.”

— Frédéric Chopin

28. “Chopin has done for the piano what Schubert has done for the voice.”

— Frédéric Chopin

29. “Oh, how hard it must be to die anywhere but in ones birthplace.”

— Frédéric Chopin

30. “Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.”

— Frédéric Chopin

31. “England is a country of pianos, they are everywhere.”

— Frédéric Chopin

32. “When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.”

— Frédéric Chopin

33. “Here, whatever is not boring is not English.”

— Frédéric Chopin

34. “I haven’t heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world...”

— Frédéric Chopin

35. “There are certain times when I feel more inspired, filled with a strong power that forces me to listen to my inner voice, and when I feel more need than ever for a Pleyel piano.”

— Frédéric Chopin

Featured in: Strong Quotes

36. “Vienna is a handsome, lively city, and pleases me exceedingly.”

— Frédéric Chopin

37. “You already know when I’m writing, so don’t be surprised if it’s short and dry, because I’m too hungry to write anything fat.”

— Frédéric Chopin

38. “My manuscripts sleep, while I cannot, for I am covered with poultices.”

— Frédéric Chopin

39. “Hats off, gentlemen – a genius! If the mighty autocrat of the north knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin’s works in the simple tunes of his mazurkas, he would forbid this music. Chopin’s works are canons buried in flowers.”

— Frédéric Chopin

40. “I don’t know how it is, but the Germans are amazed at me and I am amazed at them for finding anything to be amazed about.”

— Frédéric Chopin

41. “Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs about it; but only waltzes get printed.”

— Frédéric Chopin

42. “After a rest in Edinburgh, where, passing a music-shop, I heard some blind man playing a mazurka of mine...”

— Frédéric Chopin

43. “I really don’t know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere.”

— Frédéric Chopin

44. “All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here.”

— Frédéric Chopin

45. “England is so surrounded by the boredom of conventionalities, that it is all one to them whether music is good or bad, since they have to hear it from morning till night. For here they have flower-shows with music, dinners with music, sales with music...”

— Frédéric Chopin

46. “The Official Bulletin declared that the Poles should be as proud of me as the Germans are of Mozart; obvious nonsense.”

— Frédéric Chopin

47. “If I were still stupider than I am, I should think myself at the apex of my career; yet I know how much I still lack, to reach perfection; I see it the more clearly now that I live only among first-rank artists and know what each one of them lacks.”

— Frédéric Chopin

48. “If the newspapers cut me up so much that I shall not venture before the world again, I have resolved to become a house painter; that would be as easy as anything else, and I should, at any rate, still be an artist!”

— Frédéric Chopin